My Best Friend's Girlfriend
by ColorMeContented
Summary: Two years after the fall the most exciting things in John Watson's life are pub night with Greg, dates with his girlfriend and whenever Agnes comes to visit. Just how much more excitement can he handle when, on the anniversary of his best friend's death, he is dragged into adventure again not with Sherlock Holmes but for him.
1. Prologue: Hit the Deck

My Best Friend's Girlfriend

Rated: T

Summary: Two years after the fall the most exciting things in John Watson's life are pub night with Greg, dates with his girlfriend and whenever Agnes comes to visit. Just how much more excitement can he handle when, on the anniversary of his best friend's death, he is dragged into adventure again not with Sherlock Holmes but for him.

_Vampirefic inspired by another story I read in which Sherlock is a vampire, it was quite good… really it was a nice change from some. This is gonna be an OC story, sorry if you don't like that, I like them because it's easier to do whatever the hell I want. Takes place after the fall I guess… gives no fucks to series three at all… so… yea._

Prologue: Hit the Deck

John Hamish Watson trudged to the door with a new appreciation for sleep at five in the morning when whoever the hell it was who was at the door wouldn't stop knocking. Apparently Mrs. Hudson was visiting her sister for the weekend and his guest couldn't ring once like a normal person and leave it at that.

At the top of the stairs he gripped the handrail to keep from swaying too much to traverse them and pressed a hand to his forehead in an attempt to quell his raging headache. Maybe pub night with Greg wasn't such a good idea, or at least getting completely sloshed that Saturday night. That was a bit not good. Eventually John managed to make it to the door where he didn't bother with looking before tearing it open, intending to give whoever showed up at his flat at such an ungodly hour a piece of his fuzzy and rather hung-over mind. He didn't get the chance though. As soon as the door was unlocked it was shoved open all the way by the only person John even felt like being around on a Sunday morning.

She was all frizzy hair and dramatic curves, a bright slightly off kilter smile that had never been touched by braces and a permanent tan caused by one too many summers lying on the beach.

"Good morning John!" she greeted in a thinly veiled American accent. Her grin grew wider as she held up her hands to show John the bags hanging from her arms, "I brought jelly babies and doughnuts!"

John smiled, his headache suddenly dissipating as he stepped aside to let her in. Without a moment's hesitation she bounded up the stairs and into the flat and John locked the door before following her upstairs. By the time he was seated in his favorite chair she already had the good china out, piled with doughnuts and jelly babies even though John had told her countless times that he hated the gummy treats. Perhaps he shouldn't have introduced her to Doctor Who.

Mugs of tea and biscuits were added to the mix as well as some horrendous show on low volume on the telly, before she slowed down and took her customary seat on the left end of Sherlock's leather sofa.

Sherlock.

No doubt, that's why she'd shown up at John's door today of all days. The same reason John had spent an extra two hours at the pub, causing Greg to forcibly drag him home at one a.m. to keep him from drinking himself into a coma. The same reason she still, after two years, refused to sit on any surface in the house other than the sofa.

Bloody Sherlock Holmes.

"How are you feeling John?" she asked with a quiet understanding that John was more grateful for than breathing. If it was his therapist asking him this question he'd flip a table. But this was Agnes Mann, and she was hurting far worse than he was, she deserved better than that.

He sighed and took a bite of a plain glazed doughnut before answering, "Fine… I'm fine, you?"

Her smile faltered a moment only to return full force a moment later, "I started leaving the house last month, joined a gym, Mycroft almost threw me a party he was so excited." She popped a jelly baby in her mouth, "Anthea's been trying to set me up with a few wealthy heads of state but Myc's having none of it, I think he's so used to having me around he's starting to go all southern daddy about me leaving!" she laughed.

John smiled a bit; it was good to hear that she was finally starting to move on. Sherlock had been dead two years to the day hence the doughnut/jelly baby me-party the two were having. After the events had been settled Mycroft had immediately moved Agnes into his house to care for his brother's girlfriend with twenty four hour supervision by either Molly when she was out or Anthea when at home. For this John was grateful, it was weird enough in the beginning seeing Sherlock with a girlfriend, even stranger was him leaving one behind.

The first time he had met Agnes he hadn't known what to think. While on a case with Sherlock Holmes one meets a plethora of colorful people otherwise left avoided so when Sherlock directed the cab to a four star hotel in the middle of London at ten 'o clock at night claiming to be hunting for information John was already suspicious of who it was they were to meet. Back then Agnes hadn't been very different than she was as she and John sat quietly in his flat nearly three years later, except her hair had been longer. What it took for him to finally believe what he was seeing was Sherlock bluntly telling him that yes John he was socially adept enough to keep a girlfriend (though he loathed that particular term), and no John she was neither a carbon copy of Sherlock nor Irene, yes John other people knew, and no she was not some sort of psychopath.

After that first meeting Agnes regularly showed up at the flat bearing gifts and food, whisking them and whoever John's current girlfriend was off to dinners and shows. The most miraculous thing was that Sherlock never complained, simply rolled his eyes and did as he was told. It was a marvel to John that Agnes was able to keep the world's only consulting detective's attention so well; he respected her for it still, so many years later.

The duo sat quietly in front of the telly, sipping tea and packing on calories in a comfortable silence until John felt a question bubble up in his throat and, in the spirit of remembrance, couldn't quite hold it back.

"How did you meet him?" he asked abruptly, immediately freezing, terrified that such a personal question would cause Agnes to shut down completely. Contrary to John's fears she smiled sadly.

"We met on a case when we were eighteen."

John waited a moment but when Agnes didn't add on to her story he realized that that was all he was going to hear about it and that not prodding at it was the best course of action. He went back to his tea.

"You know," she said, "Anderson thinks he's alive, out there somewhere solving crimes, just waiting for a chance to come home."

John's empty mug clattered to the floor.

"What the bloody hell makes him think that!" he practically yelled, "I told the police everything, I _saw_ him die, I checked his pulse I was sure of it I –" John stopped his rambling with one glance at Agnes' face and the complete despair twisting her round features.

"You're sure?" she tried to whisper but it came out more as a strangled sob.

_Shit._ John dove to the sofa next to her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders in a tight hug and cursing Anderson for putting those kinds of ideas in her head. "I'm sorry Aggie, but you can't believe what Anderson says, I've talked to him too, the man's mad. Besides, you're living with Mycroft, if Sherlock was…" he took a deep breath, "if he was alive you'd know, right?"

Agnes nodded into his shoulder, "Yea, you're right. Sorry… I just, it's still hard to believe isn't it?"

"Yes, it's hard, but we have to carry on. I know it's a bit cliché but it's what he would have wanted." John relaxed his grip on Agnes' shoulders as she closed her eyes and leaned in to him. "On a happier note," John continued, "I've got good news."

Agnes sat up, dabbing at her eyes with the collar of her t-shirt. "What's that then?"

John smiled and a held up a finger for her to wait a moment before getting up and practically running to his room. He returned with a small red velvet box in his hand and a face splitting grin in place. He sat down and handed Agnes the box which she opened immediately, gasping dramatically at the contents.

"Oh my god! John, this is beautiful!" in the box rested a simple silver wedding band with the single most perfect stone Agnes had ever seen nestled between two fluffy velvet pads.

Agnes' hand flew to her chest in a gesture of disbelief as she gasped rather theatrically once again. "Oh, John, what's Mary going to say when we tell her that you proposed to me first?!"

"Haha, you're a funny one," John said, snatching the box back and tucking it into his pocket. "We're going to dinner tonight and I'm going to ask her, well, I wanted to talk to you about it first… should I do it?"

Agnes scoffed and folded her arms over her chest, "Do you really think you should be asking me?" she snickered, "I didn't really get the whole romantic experience when I was dating ya know." Considering that Agnes had been the one to plan just about every date she and Sherlock had gone on John couldn't argue.

"I just wanted your opinion," John shrugged, "you _are_ my closest friend anyway."

Agnes smiled at the statement. "John Hamish Watson, I think that Mary is a lovely lady and very lucky to be able to draw your attention enough to get you away from me for long enough to get you to fall in love with her." Her eyes practically sparkled as she spoke, "And if you don't marry that girl, by god, I will as a consolation prize." She placed a quick peck on John's cheek and settled back in to his side, refocusing on the telly.

"So, yes, I think you should do it. You deserve to be happy too John." She yawned and stretched and laid her head on his shoulder and promptly fell asleep, leaving the jelly babies and doughnuts to get stale and John promptly followed suit.

..:-:..

It was three hours later, or maybe four when John was roused from his slumber by a hand clapped over his mouth and rough hands manhandling him off the couch. Without giving too much of a fight he allowed himself to be led upstairs into his room. Once Agnes, who had woken him no doubt, had locked the door and herded John into the far corner of the room he opened his mouth to ask just what the bloody hell was going on.

"What in the bloody hell is going on?" he whispered harshly but was answered with a quick 'hush' from his friend and was shoved back down when he attempted to stand.

John immediately rubbed the sleep out of his eyes enough that he could see that Agnes was stooped over him, glaring at the door as though it had offended her, with a club in her hand that he recognized as one of the legs of his end-table, had she torn it off?

A sudden crash from downstairs caused John to jump in alarm; he quickly scrambled to his feet as quietly as possible.

"There's someone downstairs." Agnes explained quickly, "There wasn't time to properly wake you."

"Is it a burglar?" John asked, "We haven't got any valuables here, no gold to steal or valuable stones."

Agnes gave him an odd look, one eyebrow raised, almost a look of pity that lasted a few moments as though she wanted to tell him something. "Yea… it must be a burglar." She said after a while.

John rolled his eyes at the mystery his friend was putting up, he'd always thought she was an odd one; all long thoughtful looks and archaic gestures like she knew something you didn't and secretly resented you for it. He stalked past her to his dresser where he kept his gun, glad that he had cleaned it the previous weekend. "Well, if that's the case I can take care of it-" he made a reach for the door only to be yanked back by Agnes' surprisingly strong grip.

"Don't!" she hissed, "Hold still! Do you hear that?"

For a moment John held still. He heard nothing. He gave her a look.

"Exactly, a second ago someone was riffling through your flat and now its dead quiet, even the telly's been turned off…" another beat and a look of abject horror was crossing Agnes' face as she shoved John to the floor.

"HIT THE DECK!" she hollered just as a barrage of bullets ripped through the thin wall, aimed where John had been standing only a moment before.

It was over as quickly as it had started. The flat was quiet once again. Five minutes turned into ten turned into twenty when Agnes slowly got up off the ground, taking the gun from John's hand. John moved to join her but she urged him not to, rather, stalking impossibly quietly to the door before opening it, again without sound, and trudging downstairs. A minute later she was back at John's side, hauling him up.

"C'mon, John, we have to go."

He made a move for his dresser, "Alright, just let me get dresse-"

"Now!" she snarled with a grit that would have made the hairs on the back of John's neck stand up if he didn't know the soft sweet girl who was currently dragging him down the stairs with the strength of the security guard from the pub the previous night.

"Why are we leaving?" he demanded as they reached the living room, not that he minded being dragged about by a woman, but it was nice to know why.

When he turned to look at the room he got his answer.

Laid out on the sofa was the pale body of a raggedy youth who had once been, he remembered, a member of Sherlock's homeless network and scrawled on the mirror above the fireplace in fresh blood were the words.

'GIVE ME SHERLOCK HOLMES'


	2. Are You People Insane?

Chapter one: Are You People Insane?!

_I tried to put as much Mycroft sass into this as possible, because I love it when he gets all sassypants on everyone._

John had no idea what was happening. He had just wanted a nice day of mourning with doughnuts and jelly babies and crap telly with Agnes before asking the love of his life to marry him but there he was, stuffed into one of Mycroft's unmarked vehicles that had conspicuously appeared at his door, between Agnes and Anthea and not being told a bit of what was going on.

The women were texting, obviously each other because as soon as Anthea's phone buzzed Agnes glanced at her and Anthea glanced at Agnes likewise. John had half a mind to ask them if this was something he should know about, but in light of his last conversation with Anthea decided on a more stealthy approach.

He leaned over as far as he could towards Agnes without her noticing and managed to glimpse a bit of the conversation that was being carried on without him.

_Drank the blood, the rest was on the mirror-AM_

_Are you sure we're dealing with The Species? M will not be happy-A_

_I don't care if he's not happy, he said GIVE ME SHERLOCK HOLMES, _I'm_ not happy, obviously something's going on behind my back-AM_

_He never meant for you to find out like this…-A_

"Find what out then?" John asked, throwing twin glances at the girls on either side of him, expecting that since they were caught they would have to give him an answer.

No such luck.

Agnes simply turned to the window and ignored him while Anthea continued texting. Agnes' phone buzzed uncontrollably but she refused to pick it up.

They bustled out of the car as soon as they arrived at the elder Holmes brother's home. It was massive; something that John had only ever seen on those shows that obsessed over rich people's houses and for a split second he wondered what Mycroft needed so many rooms for and then decided that he really didn't want to know.

As he stood admiring the house Anthea grabbed his upper arm, leading him past the gate and inside. She pressed a shiny silver flip phone into his hand when the trio arrived at a comfortably furnished sitting room where they were to wait for their host.

"Call Mary and tell her to get into the car that arrives at her door, it will bring her here." She ordered.

"Why would I do that?" John asked, shoving the phone back at her. He was slowly becoming more irritated at the lack of information he was being given. Anthea's face fell from its perfect mask for a moment and she pushed the phone back towards him.

"That information is best delivered by Mr. Holmes, just call her… please." Then she added quietly, "We don't need to lose anyone else today, do we?"

John's heart seized at this, Mary could die today? From what? Who was threatening her and did it have to do with what happened at the flat that morning? Who the hell wants Sherlock Holmes, doesn't the whole world know he's dead by now?!

Of course John never voiced any of his questions as he was far too busy phoning Mary and begging her to get in the car.

..:-:..

Agnes sat patiently on Mycroft's sofa as John frantically dialed Mary. She smiled. John whole body was shaking at even the thought of Mary coming to harm. It was cute really.

"Agnes." She glanced up to see Mycroft standing just off her shoulder, umbrella in hand, it seems he'd come home from work for this. She frowned at him. "I've prepared the information you need in your room," he handed her a key, "please bring the information with you when you've finished with it so that Dr. Watson may see after I've explained the situation to him."

She narrowed her eyes at him, abruptly slapping the keys from his hand. Her scowl quickly turned into a strained smile.

"No, I think you'd better explain the situation to _me_ first, Mycroft, I'd love to know what's been going on here without me."

By this time John had convinced Mary and returned the phone to Anthea, fully aware that Mycroft and Agnes were having a rather important discussion that he should endeavor to be a part of.

Mycroft looked from Agnes to John, aware that the latter was listening in and beckoned for him to join them.

"Now's not the time to be shy Dr. Watson, please, won't you join us?" John took a seat next to Agnes. Mycroft sighed and leaned back in his seat, "I trust you understand that any information you may hear while in this house is privileged, time sensitive, classified as well as state secrets. If you repeat anything you hear here outside of this house you will be erased."

John nodded. He'd heard the elder Holmes' speech about national security before, it honestly didn't scare him.

"Get on with it." Agnes ordered. Mycroft shot her a look.

"I believe there is a forensics specialist with Scotland Yard that the two of you have been in contact with, Anderson's the name I believe. He seems to have developed these strange notions that my brother lives on after his… accident, I have heard several of his theories in person as he has the irritating habit of attempting to sneak into my home in search of what he calls 'the truth.'"

John rolled his eyes, "Yea, we already know the man's a nutter-"

"He was correct." Mycroft interrupted, "Sherlock Holmes is alive."

In that moment John's brain kind of switched off and back on again like he did to his laptop when it was refusing to perform a basic function such as searching the web, in his case it was thinking. He blinked a few times and shook his head. What had Mycroft said? That Sherlock was alive? His complete confusion was interrupted by Agnes' calm question as though she hadn't just been given the best news of her life.

"Moriarty wasn't a real threat to him then?" she asked.

Mycroft simply shook his head no. "Fortunately not," he looked to John, "Though before we continue I fear that Dr. Watson may need more of an explanation than I have provided so far."

Both of John's eyebrows shot up, still processing that one bit of information.

"Oh dear," Mycroft said, "I'm afraid I've broken him."

"I'm not broken!" John snapped, "I don't know why you aren't as surprised as I am, Agnes. He just told you your boyfriend didn't bash his head in on the sidewalk in front of St. Bart's and you're just sitting there like he's told you the weather."

Agnes simply shrugged, "I hadn't thought he was dead in the first place."

"But this morning!" John countered, "You were devastated!"

"_Acting_ John, I would have assumed you've heard of it?" Mycroft interjected.

John just looked at the two of them with their blank expressions in the face of world moving news. He could understand Mycroft not showing any joy at the thought of his brother's survival; the man didn't seem to be anything other than bored about anything, but Agnes! Just that morning she had been completely distraught when John had said he was sure, that couldn't have all been acting, could it have been?

"Are you people insane?!" he shouted, standing sharply and turning to pace a few steps away.

"Sit down Dr. Watson, there's plenty of time to call us names, though I'm sure you will wish that you had reserved your accusations of insanity until after I've finished."

John begrudgingly obeyed, childishly sitting further away from Agnes than he had been while crossing his arms in totally-not-a pout.

"As I was saying," Mycroft began, "Moriarty, though intent on killing my brother, was not any real sort of threat to his life. It is safe to say that Sherlock's only motivation for taking the fall was protecting the lives of his friends who were much more vulnerable than he." John opened his mouth to add something but Mycroft held up his hand as a warning not to interrupt, "Sherlock was in no danger of being killed, or even slightly harmed, by his enemy because of the fact that his enemy was only human."

"You say that like Sherlock wasn't-isn't." John said.

"Yes," Mycroft clarified, "I suppose the term the masses would use to describe my brother, though archaic and hardly politically correct, would be vampire."

John blinked, "What?"

He flinched a bit when Agnes' hand moved to cover his own.

"You know that traditionally vampires are creatures that only emerge from their tombs at night to feed on blood, they can turn their bodies into bats, cannot cross running water or stand in direct sunlight, and, a more recent addition, sparkle?"

John nodded.

"Well that's wrong," she said, "or at least it's been wrong for the last thousand years or so, we've evolved past certain shortcomings in our physiology to exclude most of the preconceived notions everyday people have about us. While vampires do, in fact, require consumption of blood to survive, it's much less than any amount that would actually kill a man and we don't only drink blood. We've been able to blend in to the human population well enough that we eat food albeit very little, we don't look any different from your average human, some of us even age." She paused, searching John's face for any inclination that he might bolt, "the only other differences are that the weakest of us is five times stronger than your average human male… and the teeth."

John's head was swimming with the probability of what he was being told. Vampires were real, and Sherlock Holmes was one of them-

"Hold on, you said 'us,' so you're…"

Agnes nodded. John watched in morbid fascination as she bared her teeth, showing two extra pairs of canines that had miraculously appeared in her mouth only to quickly disappear back beneath her gums.

_Retractable fangs,_ thought John, _yea, of course. How else would it work?_

He turned to Mycroft, "Are you?"

"No," Mycroft waved his hand dismissively, "Mummy was one of The Species but Father was human, a couple like that only has a fifty percent chance of having a child of The Species, and that child was Sherlock."

"Okay, okay, alright," John pressed a hand to his head, feeling another headache coming on. He pointed to Agnes, "So you're a vampire?"

"I prefer the term 'of The Species.'"

"Right, so you're of The Species and you're telling me that my former flatmate, the man I was with on cases for weeks at a time and never once saw him touch a _drop_ of blood, is too. And all of this is real? This isn't Greg pulling some magnificent prank on me for my stint at the pub last night?"

"There are secrets that are well enough hidden to be kept from even my knowledge." Said Mycroft. "Of course you wouldn't have known if such things were real." John shot him a dirty look.

"It's real, John." Agnes insisted, "I told you that we don't need as much blood as we used to, and Sherlock was at St. Bart's so often, is it so hard to believe that he could have grabbed a bag while he was there?"

"No," John said as he ran a hand through his hair, "I suppose not, that's just, wow… it's just a lot to take in."

"If you've got any questions feel free to let either Agnes or myself know, now that you have some of the information you might as well have all of it." said Mycroft.

"No, No I think you've covered most of it, your presentation was very… thorough-"

"Actually, I'd like to know something," Agnes interrupted with a sharp look to Mycroft, "now that we know for certain that Sherlock is alive, where is he?"

"Ay, there's the rub," Mycroft sighed, "Anthea, please put my brother's last known location on the screen!"

Agnes and John looked to the television mounted on the far wall that had lit up to show that Sherlock had fled from London to Pakistan and then all over the middle east and Siberia before finally going off the grid in Russia, like, completely off the grid, so far underground that even Mycroft's sources couldn't pinpoint his location.

Mycroft turned off the screen. "As you can see, each blip on the screen was the location of one or more operatives of Moriarty's web. My brother's intention with the fall was to give himself enough time to take down his enemy's organization before anyone else could come after his friends, I have reason to believe that he was successful in this venture and was en route back to London when he disappeared. None of my contacts from any remote corner of the world has been able to catch a glimpse of him for… it will be three months next Thursday."

"And now a demand for Sherlock Holmes has turned up in blood on my wall," stated John, "you think he's in trouble?"

"My brother _looks_ for trouble Dr. Watson, _this_ is a crisis. The fact that the body in your living room was reportedly drained of blood would point to the theory that one of The Species was in your home looking for my brother. And they are far more dangerous than any human criminal you may have encountered with him."

John blanched. "That's not good."

"No," Mycroft agreed, "It isn't."

Throughout the whole exchange Agnes was disturbingly quiet, hands steepled under her chin, reminding John faintly of Sherlock as she stared ahead.

"I know where he is." She said suddenly.

"How's that?" John and Mycroft asked at the same time.

"During my adolescence, after I emigrated from the Americas to Europe I purchased a little cottage in the farm lands of Ireland as a sort of get away whenever I needed a home to go back to. Sherlock and I went there once. If there's any place he would think to go if he was in trouble and needed to lay low, it would be there."

"Wonderful," Mycroft stood without missing a beat, "I'll have a car to drive you to the air strip where a jet will be waiting to take you to Ireland-"

"Now hold on just a moment." John demanded, "We're waiting for Mary."

Mycroft sighed as dramatically as Agnes had, "Anthea, activate the tracking device in Ms. Morstan's car and do tell the driver to hurry."

"The car has arrived at its destination, sir." Anthea answered.

"It'll take too long to wait for her and it will be too dangerous to take her with us," Agnes urged, tugging on John's dressing gown sleeve, "Mycroft's got this situation under control, Mary will be fine here with them until we return." John opened his mouth to protest but was cut off, "Time is of the essence, John, at the rate we're going Sherlock might not be in Ireland when we get there."

John hesitated a moment before nodding and allowing Agnes to drag him out the door to the waiting car. Mycroft sighed and fell back, as gracefully as possible, onto the sofa.

"Why must my brother worry me constantly?" he whined.

"Sir," said Anthea as she stared confusedly at the mobile in her hands, "I'm showing that the car sent to retrieve Ms. Morstan arrived at its destination before disappearing completely, I've got no more record of anything regarding it."

..:-:..

"There's one thing you and Mycroft never mentioned," said John as he got situated in the car, glad that Mycroft was omnipotent and had provided a jumper and trousers for him as well as that Agnes had allowed him time to get dressed.

"What's that?" Agnes asked.

"How do you get to be one of The Species, and why didn't a full on face to concrete collision kill Sherlock? Believe me, I'm glad that it didn't, but I'm curious."

Agnes's brows rose shortly, "The Species isn't made, John, it's born, and it's immortal. The only thing that could have killed Sherlock is another one of us." A far off look passed over her eyes, "I just hope we get to him before they do."


End file.
